Chapter 63: Break

Rudy broke into an easy sprint. He didn't want to strand Chloe and wasn't sure how well she'd kept in shape. The gasps she struggled to hide when she stumbled into the marble-railed balcony of the estate's main hall told him. Not as well as he had.

Or else he was flying on an adrenaline high and would crash as hard as a mecha in gravity in a few minutes. That would get ugly.

Rudy glanced around the hall. No other men-at-arms had poured out to stop him and Chloe from escaping. So far, so good. As long as they hesitated to shoot Chloe, and hence anyone standing near her, Rudy didn't worry too much about the Kyrillos troops. Slava, their captain and champion, hadn't posed much of a challenge .

Chloe glanced up from the railing. Her face was flushed with exertion and she was still breathing hard. She breathed awfully prettily, Rudy couldn't help but notice.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To the Magpie,” Rudy said.

“How are we going to get it in the air?”

Rudy winked. “Trust me.”

The nervous smile Chloe had worn faded. Her stratosphere blues narrowed. She straightened up. Even the breathing he'd been idly appreciating slowed.

Rudy knew that look. He'd have been seeing altogether too much of it lately, except that he'd hardly seen her at all.

He wanted to take her hands and tell her – okay, he wanted to do more than take her hands. But he didn't want her to pull away, and it was pretty obvious she planned on both his attempt and her evasion.

The direct approach might be Rudy’s first, second and third choice. Didn't mean it was the only one he knew.

He met her hard gaze and turned it with gentle force. His martial arts instructors would've beamed at him, for maybe the first time. “Chloe,” he said softly, firmly, “we will talk about this. But this is not the time.”

She set her jaw, but Rudy knew he had her. She closed her eyes. “You're right.”

Rudy killed his sigh of relief. He took Chloe's stiff hand and tensed to run.

“That's far enough, Mr. Algreil.”

Rudy didn't turn. No sudden movements. No movements at all, if he could help it. Not yet.

He said, “Hi, Steph.”

“You are not being a very good guest,” Stephan said. “I'd say I'm disappointed, but frankly, I'd be lying. Her Highness, on the other hand, is proving to be rather more foolish than I'd thought possible.”

Rudy mouthed, 'keep him talking.'

Chloe answered with an almost imperceptible nod.

“Since when,” she said, “is it foolishness to run away from somebody who's trying to keep you prisoner?”

“In the company of such a trustworthy rescuer, Highness?”

“In the company of the lesser of two evils.”

Rudy winced. Hopefully, she only said it to play to Stephan’s biases. Since she still looked ready to ditch him if he so much as looked at her funny, he didn't like the odds.

“Well, the company of the lesser man, at least,” Stephan said.

Chloe snorted. “You don't call yourself evil? You lie, you manipulate, you kill. Principle alone knows what your organization does in your name.”

“Only the winners have the luxury of throwing around such labels, Highness,” Stephan said. “Until you see reason and assist me in correcting this worthless galaxy, you will have to inquire with the Federal Senate regarding matters of 'good' and 'evil.'”

“How come you didn't mention your ethical philosophy while you were deciding not to train me? When you kept me isolated from the rest of the aristocracy, who might have taken their oaths of fealty more seriously?”

“Honestly, Highness, you can't blame me. By your own admission, you weren't much of a pupil, and as we now see, I really couldn't trust you, could I?”

“If I bring this mansion down on our heads,” Chloe said, “you're gonna look pretty stupid.”

“You won't,” Stephan said.

“Yeah? Why not?”

“Because, Highness, you do not lie.” Stephan sounded about ten paces away and closing fast.

Rudy forced himself to relax.

Six paces.

“You do not manipulate.”

Rudy met Chloe's eyes.

Three paces.

“You do not – kill!”

Rudy spun Chloe aside and himself into a high backflip, seconds before an icicle congealed from the air and thunked into a pillar behind where they'd been standing.

Rudy came down with a foot to Stephan's face and knocked him backwards, hit the floor before the Black Rook did, and swept his other leg around to send Stephan tumbling.

“She doesn't monologue, either, Steph,” Rudy said as he flipped to his feet. “You should get that checked. It's one of the first symptoms of villainy.”

Stephan didn't bother standing or even forming one of his trademark icicles. He thrust his palm at Rudy in a swirl of chilly, telekinetically-agitated air.

And nothing else.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Stephan's eyes widened. He shot a glance behind Rudy – to Chloe, presumably – and then back.

Rudy kept his own expression neutral. It seemed like the wrong time to admit he'd been tensed to roll with a telekinetic punch capable of bouncing him off the walls. He’d also been low-key prepared to die trying to save Chloe, but he hated to admit that possibility even to himself.

Nothing hid surprise like rolling into somebody, twisting them into the air and kicking them over the railing of a third-story balcony. Rudy didn't hear anything from Stephan after his first, undignified squawk, so he figured the Black Rook had spread his psychic wings before he crashed.

“Lord Kyrillos!” A troop of men-at-arms, Quinn in the lead, charged up the last flight of the grand staircase. Their boxy automatic rifles looked too powerful for his flight suit to stop. Like it mattered? Even a pistol bullet would knock the wind out of him, which was all they needed.

“Time to go, Clo,” he called.

“Way ahead of you,” Chloe said. She waved from the cover of a side hall. “This way!”

Rudy dove in after her, seconds before bullets rattled the air in three-shot bursts fast enough they blended together from a rattle to a single whine. Chips of wood and stone exploded from the estate's walls. One of the splinters would have stained his arm a duller red if not for his flight suit's armor.

Chloe being in cover and Rudy not could, he decided, get bad. The men-at-arms had no reason to even hesitate.

Her not being in cover might be worse. He didn't know they'd hesitate if they might hit her. Especially after he’d struck Stephan directly, and Chloe had sided with him.

She apparently didn't want to put it to the test any more than Rudy did, because she took off down the hall even before he'd rolled to his feet. He couldn't help but appreciate the sight, but he didn't exactly have time to soak in the view.

One of these days, Rudy thought, I'm gonna get to watch her run when I don't have to concentrate on catching up.

Once upon a time, he thought, I'd have been able to say that.

Chloe would still have glared, but she wouldn't have meant it. Maybe.

They rounded a corner, Chloe slowing, Rudy speeding up as he bounced off the far wall to turn his momentum. He caught up to her and glanced her way. “Do you know where we're going?”

“Away from the guys with the guns,” she said, punctuating each word with a hard breath.

“Good idea,” Rudy said. He swept the hallway, looking for a better one.

Elegant doors to elegant guest bedrooms. Definitely not. With no other exits, they were elegant death traps.

Stained-glass windows like the ones Slava had nearly taken a dive through. If Rudy had been alone, he'd have been out those in a heartbeat, but he'd never had either the opportunity or the idea to teach Chloe the free running techniques he'd use to get down safely.

Wood-paneled far corner adorned with glowering portraits of Kyrilloses past. It curved back toward the main hall and Quinn's fireteam. Rudy was willing to bet his life they knew to spread out and cover both ends.

Broad balcony overlooking the estate's grounds.

Rudy grinned.

He grabbed Chloe's arm and pulled her out onto it.

She gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Better idea,” he said. “Hold on to me!”

Now that his thoughts had had a chance to catch up to his instincts, he worried about this step. But to his surprise, Chloe immediately wrapped her arms around him and nodded. He pulled her tight and resisted the urge to try for a good luck kiss –

And jumped off the balcony.

His back rammed into the shining solar shingles of the estate's sprawling tool shed. It was a two story drop. Rudy alone could have handled twice that much without any trouble even in normal gravity. Maybe even without a flight suit to cushion the impact.

Of course, he wouldn't have landed on his back, nor would he have had another person's weight bearing down on him. The landing knocked the breath out of him.

Chloe rolled off him – nearly off the shed, too, before she caught herself on the rim.

Rudy tried to follow and grimaced. Damn, that had been a worse idea than he thought. At least his spine didn't seem to be cracked. He figured nerve damage would have made the rest of his body stop hurting, or at least overwhelmed the pain.

“Rudy!” Chloe's face hovered above his. She gripped his shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“Didn't know you cared.” He flashed what would have been a lot more charming grin if it hadn't come out as a grimace.

“I shouldn't.” She matched the grin he was trying for.

“Can't very well let you down, then,” he said.

He pried himself up. Aches and pains, and a hell of a bruise, he was sure, but nothing he couldn't ignore.

For now, at least.

Chloe's sigh of relief was downright inspirational.

Rudy started to speak, but a shout from overhead interrupted him. “They're down there!”

He looked up to see Quinn, rifle shouldered and aimed at them. The Kyrillos man-at-arms hesitated when he saw Chloe in his line of fire. “Surrender,” he shouted.

“You won't shoot me, Quinn,” Chloe said.

“I will if I'm ordered to, Highness.” He narrowed his eyes. “Your friend there is a bonus.”

Chloe was between Rudy and the Kyrillos man-at-arms. That meant she'd take the shots if he started shooting, and was damn fool enough not to get out of the way. Rudy didn't believe she had it in her to let an injured man die even if she'd decided to try to hate said guy.

Chloe's position also meant Quinn couldn't see Rudy's arm.

Not until he whipped a little pistol from the holster his suit had formed for it and emptied a clip into the man-at-arm's chest. The rounds thudded wetly. Less than lethal rounds against armored men? Rudy suppressed a curse. At least they knocked Quinn back.

Chloe had clapped her hands to her ears and rolled away, apparently not realizing she was too late to actually keep the sound out. Rudy grabbed one of her arms and pulled her after him as he slid toward the edge of the garage.

Bullets riddled the roof behind them as the rest of Quinn's fireteam reached the balcony. They didn't have the same discipline without their boss to order it. The fully automatic fire did more damage to the estate than it ever risked doing to Rudy or Chloe.

Rudy landed on a storage shed, caught Chloe before she could fall past it, and used her momentum to pull them both down to ground level.

He set her down gently as a dance partner. “Can't beat this for living, huh?”

“Or for dying,” she said shakily.

He didn't see any point in acknowledging her sudden case of defeatism.

The rifle chatter fell silent, replaced by the clinking of discarded clips and falling bits of roof. “Into the garage,” Rudy said, and pulled Chloe after him.

The inside was dark and chilly. Rudy almost tripped over something metal.

“Get the lights, Clo,” he called. He started picking his way through the darkness, slipping a hand into another of the pockets his suit had formed. He exchanged the spent pistol for the other item he'd acquired before he tried this little rescue operation.

He muttered, “Sixth from the door, right-hand side.”

He was pretty sure he'd found what he was looking for. He swung onto it and found the seat was made from reactive gel and, barely, big enough for two. Comfortable and cozy. Under better circumstances, he'd have appreciated it even more than he did now.

The lights flickered on, and he couldn't help but wince when he saw what he was sitting on. It startled a laugh from Chloe.

“You shouldn't laugh at the source of your salvation,” Rudy said. Good time to be dark-complexioned. Chloe was the one who was supposed to blush.

“Salvation,” Chloe said, “isn't usually hot pink.”

Rudy had to agree. But when he pressed the lock of dark curls he'd pulled from his pocket to the touchpad on the side of the bubble-gum colored snowmobile, an engine roared to life that sounded almost sufficient to make up for its chassis.

“That's Milissa's,” Chloe said.

He held up the lock of hair he'd used to start the machine. “This or the snowmobile?”

“Both.”

“The pistol, too. Hence those squishy 'bullets.'”

“Oh.” Chloe looked like she wanted to have a long, heartfelt and possibly violent conversation on the subject.

Rudy wasn't exactly upset when another round of automatic weapons fire interrupted her.

“Later,” he said, and motioned to the back of the snowmobile's seat.

Score one for pragmatism. Chloe took him up on the offer, and when the rifles clicked empty again, Rudy gunned the accelerator.